Which position do we need to strengthen?

[AdamB]

Priority has to be signing another attacking option. Ideally someone who can play as a second striker and also out wide. Every week our bench lacks any sort of option which could pep up our attack - and we dont really have many injuries at the moment. If we lost say Lennon and Sigurdsson to injury and Adebayor goes to the ANC, we would have to either play players out of position to cover or start players like Townsend (who, whlist promising, it too young to pin CL qualification on).

Willian would be ideal, though am not expecting us to spend more than £10m this window (wouldnt surprise me if we spend less than £5m and/or just sign loanees) so think we'll be left corssing our fingers that players dont get too burned out or injured

 

[braineclipse]

I keep seeing people arguing that our top priority should be a strike. Yet we've managed without Ade for much of the season so far without problems. We have Dempsey and Sig on the bench when we have a fully fit team.

At the same time our results without Dembele have been very poor, our performances haven't been good either. People say we don't have cover for our strikers, but we do have some decent options there. We have no real cover for Dembele, no other player in the squad who can play that role apart from possibly the completely untested and unproven Carroll.

 

[jimmyb]

I keep seeing people arguing that our top priority should be a strike. Yet we've managed without Ade for much of the season so far without problems. We have Dempsey and Sig on the bench when we have a fully fit team.

At the same time our results without Dembele have been very poor, our performances haven't been good either. People say we don't have cover for our strikers, but we do have some decent options there. We have no real cover for Dembele, no other player in the squad who can play that role apart from possibly the completely untested and unproven Carroll.

We've managed okay..............so far. All it would take is an injury to JD. Not exactly unheard of. And then, if Ade was with the Togo team for six weeks in S Africa, we'd be pretty much fudged.

By contrast, if Dembele is injured, we'd still have the following central midfield options: Sandro, Parker, Huddlestone, Sigurdsson, Carroll and Livermore.

None of them are Dembele, certainly. And of course we would miss a player of such quality. But at least we do have other options for that position. At striker, we have only JD and Ade - though Dempsey could, in an emergency, play out of position as a lone front man.

Besides which, even though we have managed okay with our current strikers, we should be looking for better than just okay.

 

[braineclipse]

We've managed okay..............so far. All it would take is an injury to JD. Not exactly unheard of. And then, if Ade was with the Togo team for six weeks in S Africa, we'd be pretty much fudged.

By contrast, if Dembele is injured, we'd still have the following central midfield options: Sandro, Parker, Huddlestone, Sigurdsson, Carroll and Livermore.

None of them are Dembele, certainly. And of course we would miss a player of such quality. But at least we do have other options for that position. At striker, we have only JD and Ade - though Dempsey could, in an emergency, play out of position as a lone front man.

Besides which, even though we have managed okay with our current strikers, we should be looking for better than just okay.

Obviously if someone who is clearly better than Ade and JD becomes available we should buy.

We have managed better without Ade than without Dembele, by some margin. If we've only managed "ok" without Ade we've managed "not at all" without Dembele.

Very unlikely that Ade will be gone for 6 weeks even if he does go to the ANC, actually I think 6 weeks is impossible. The opening game is January the 19th, Togo play their first game January the 22nd, the final is on February the 10th. Even given two weeks off to prepare and getting to the final you won't get more than 4-5 weeks and the players won't get 2 weeks to prepare if my memory serves me right from last year so even 4 weeks is probably a stretch even if they go to the final that is, not particularly likely.

Dempsey is more of a striker than Sigurdsson is a central midfielder.

 

[jimmyb]

Obviously if someone who is clearly better than Ade and JD becomes available we should buy.

We have managed better without Ade than without Dembele, by some margin. If we've only managed "ok" without Ade we've managed "not at all" without Dembele.

Very unlikely that Ade will be gone for 6 weeks even if he does go to the ANC, actually I think 6 weeks is impossible. The opening game is January the 19th, Togo play their first game January the 22nd, the final is on February the 10th. Even given two weeks off to prepare and getting to the final you won't get more than 4-5 weeks and the players won't get 2 weeks to prepare if my memory serves me right from last year so even 4 weeks is probably a stretch even if they go to the final that is, not particularly likely.

Dempsey is more of a striker than Sigurdsson is a central midfielder.

I disagree that Dempsey is more a striker than Sigurdsson a central midfielder - even more so if we have to rely on Dempsey up front on his own.

As to coping better without Ade than without Dembele, there were more factors involved than merely Dembele's absence. And yes, Ade's absence hasn't hurt us too much this season - but that's largely because Ade has been, by and large, woeful when he has played. Imagine, instead, that we had someone like RVP up front but were suddenly forced to be without him for months.......

Even more to the point, the fact remains that we are scarily thin with regards to striker options. This season, we've had simultaneous injuries to Dembele, Parker and Livermore. But we've still had plenty of available central midfield options. If we were to have simultaneous injuries to JD, Ade and Dempsey (which is, after all, no less likely), we would have no other options. Not a single one. We would be well and truly screwed.

As to the African Cup of Nations.....even if it was only four weeks (and bear in mind how often players seem to return late from the ACN - especially if they've won the tournament), we'd still be fudged. Besides, injury to Ade and Defoe would do the fudging us up job just as well. The point is that we have a frightening lack of options up front.

 

[SubZero]

A creative playmaker and a strong forward with good vision would make us definite 3rd place contenders come May.

 

[spurspinter1]

Thought I'd bring this back to life to have a bit of a moan in.

Did AVB really mean it when he said he thought we had a very balanced squad? I'm hoping he did just say that because it wouldn't be the wisest idea to say "actually we've got a very good starting XI but with a few injuries we're completely fudged" as opposed to actually believing it.

For the first time in ages, our squad in a defensive sense doesn't need strengthening and has a core of young versatile players and our goalkeeping situation is looking a little more promising (if only we could move on Gomes it would be ideal). Happy days.

However from a CM point of view, as I've said many times, we've been walking a tightrope for while. Sandro and Dembele have been class but this is Spurs so it was always likely one of them would get injured long term. But we do have a quality back up in Scott Parker which is fortunate. But now of our starting midfield pairing one is managing a hip injury which could return at any point and the other is 32 years old and returning from a long term achilles injury. We've got plenty of games coming up so it seems inevitable that we're going to have the use the back ups.

I do like Livermore and think he is capable of much more than most on here seem to, but to come in after playing very little and be relied upon for our champions league push might be a bit much, at this stage he'd be much better out on loan, a cleverly-esque Wigan type loan where he can quietly go about playing his football week in week out and then come back a much more experienced player, as to opposed to constantly being tutted at and groaned at everytime he gets on the ball.

And Huddlestone, who it pains me to say, for a long time now, has only inspired two words in me whenever he plays in recent times, these words are average and slow. I'd love him to come in and remind us of what a talent he can be and to prove me wrong, but it just doesn't look like happening.

I'm not massively in favour of bringing in Holtby now, but we may be forced to. There has to be some sort of movement CM wise surely unless AVB see's real potential in the Carroll's and other young talents at the club.

Striker wise I do only want us to make a move if serious talent or potential is available at the right price. I'd rather play Dempsey Bale or Siggy as a lone striker before bringing in someone like Jones, who we'd be stuck with for a while and who isn't the answer to our striking problems and is also not young.

 

[Shropshire Yid]

We are crying out for 2 major signings

1) Striker - A man who will get 20-25 league goals and bring others into play.

2) a Creative Midfielder who can 'move the bus' lets say. A lot of people feel this is Moutinho, but I do not. I think Moutinho plays the position Dembele plays and I dont buy this moving Dembele forward. In Simple terms, I would go and buy Sneidjer, because he is the exact player we need in my eyes. I know nothing about Holtby in terms of what he can offer us, and the morrocan guy we are linked with, (Belhenda?) again im not sure. Willian would be perfect as well but I just think it maybe a little rich for us.

If we could get those two positiions sorted this month, we would finish 3rd in my eyes. Chelsea are going to be under huge pressure now the chance of Pep has gone, they hate Rafa, so every little thing is going to get booed!

Lets hope!

 

[Wriggly]

We need a playmaker. Sneijder/Moutinho someone like that.